The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Many refinery plants or crude oil processing plants are designed to use heavy crude oil as feedstock to produce various valuable products. While there are benefits in processing heavy crude oils, the low cost of light crude oil has created an attractive alternative. Unfortunately, the availability of these low-cost feedstocks has created a mismatch with existing plant design.
Additionally, or alternatively, hydrocarbon products can also be prepared from natural gas using a GTL plant via the Fischer-Tropsch process. A standalone GTL plant typically requires the following units: syngas preparation, Fischer-Tropsch reactor, product upgrading and all support utilities and offsite (“U&O”) facilities. Consequently, the cost of a standalone GTL plant can be relatively high, and can be especially troublesome for small scale plants in terms of the cost per barrel per day.
Some have attempted to integrate a GTL plant with crude oil distillation. For example, Armistead (US 2014/0097123) discloses an integrated process facility for fractionating crude oil and converting gas-to-liquid. The process includes hydroprocessing fractionated products and Fischer-Tropsch products in the same hydroprocessor. Others that have discussed GTL plants or Fischer-Tropsch synthesis include Kresnyak (CA 2751615), Espinoza (US 2006/0016722), Miller (US 2006/0138024), Hoek (WO 2014/095815), and Armistead (WO 2014/058907). These and all other extrinsic materials discussed herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply. While each of these references has provided some benefit, there is still a need for a cost-effective integration of a GTL plant to produce Fischer-Tropsch liquid products.